"They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realise that it's not worth the f*cking effort. There is a difference."
The late Bill Hicks

1.) lift the front off the ground with a headstock stand or from roof rafters.
2.) remove front wheel, take of brake calipers and speedo sensor.

3.) remove handlebars and make sure they are vertical (don’t want your brake juice going everywhere).
4.)Undo the pinch bolts on the top yoke (or it wont work), then using the fork tool undo the top part of the suspension JUST SO ITS LOOSE, the bottom clamp holds it in place this saves you having to put it in a vice once removed.

5.)Undo bottom yoke pinch bolts and remove fork legs.
6.)Unscrew the top part of the fork until the outer black fork stanction falls down.

7.) you now should see a long 5” spacer this needs to be pulled down to reveal the 22mm nut helps if you have two people, you need a THIN spanner an adjustable one probably wont work.

8.) with the 22mm spanner on you can now use your tool in the tool kit to unscrew the top preload which lets the top cap fall off.

9.) as you remove the 22mm spanner the 5” spacer, and spring just slide out, put all the parts to one side.

10.) the oil can then be poured into a container make sure you pump the inner part as shown or you wont get all the fluid out.

11.) once your happy you have all the fluid is out replace with 5w fork oil 1 litre is enough to do both forks and some left over.
12.) fill up with new oil it does not matter if you put too much in but hopefully you noted the oil level prior to removing, Make sure you pump the inner workings to get the oil in the chambers as you did when you removed the old oil, we use a device to get the correct air gap, here is one I made, you can buy the device but this works the same.

Then place inside the fork tube and it sucks the excess oil out to the desired 11cm gap.

The air gap is meant to be 11cm, the air gap is from the oil level to the top of the outer suspension sleeve when at the bottom of the fork stanction the fork should look like this when measuring:

Make sure you pump the inner workings to get the oil in the chambers as you did when you removed the old oil..
13.) Ok you now have fresh oil, I have an 06 bike so changed my front 9nm springs for 9.5nm which the 07 on and SDR has. You now just need to reverse all the steps to put it back together. I got sent the wrong springs by FTR they were for an RC8 so not actually put back together yet!

Will be changing my rear spring too some time this week from a 160 to a 170.

Sorry for the crappy pics, my camera is gash and hard taking pics of yourself when you need both your hands! I also apologise I never know the correct word for anything but hopefully you get the jist, not a difficult job IMO.

I might do mine on sat morn. Where did you get the tool for removing the top of the fork m8?

Oh and you didn't have any probs with leaking seals after putting it all back together?

"They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realise that it's not worth the f*cking effort. There is a difference."
The late Bill Hicks

Colonel_Klinck wrote:I might do mine on sat morn. Where did you get the tool for removing the top of the fork m8?

Oh and you didn't have any probs with leaking seals after putting it all back together?

Pm us your address and will send you mine just bring it to Cadders when your done.

If your seals are fine before dont think this will really effect them, they will be fine.

Of course looking at it you aren't touching the seals end of the forks are you. Going to crack on with this today. After 31000 miles my poor fork oil is def due a change. Cheers for the tool Dan

"They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realise that it's not worth the f*cking effort. There is a difference."
The late Bill Hicks

All done Perfect instructions Dan. The only thing I would add is remember to clean the bottom of the fork leg before you start. I did the first leg but got all carried away with the second and forgot. All that shit got under the seals when you take the spring out and its able to slide all the way to the bottom think I've got it all out using a very thin feeler gauge. Fingers crossed.

Oil was minging!! Couldn't believe how dirty it was. I ended up emptying oil and pumping out. Then pouring a bit in and pumping it through, then pouring and pumping that out again before refilling. Even that came out shitty. Def needed doing and feels like a new front end now Happy camper.

"They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realise that it's not worth the f*cking effort. There is a difference."
The late Bill Hicks

Axman wrote:How often do you guys do this?Is it necessary if you're not doing track riding?

i would think at the least everyother year depending on your mileage. suspension takes a beating.that said mine is waaaayyy over due. i have so many other things that go wrong with my bike that just keeping up with thats stuff, routine mantainece like this gets overlooked. next spring i want to do the front fluid, clutch, clutch slave (preemptive!), and the brake fluid, all over due. at least i finally own my SD free and clear!

Axman wrote:How often do you guys do this?Is it necessary if you're not doing track riding?

i would think at the least everyother year depending on your mileage. suspension takes a beating.that said mine is waaaayyy over due. i have so many other things that go wrong with my bike that just keeping up with thats stuff, routine mantainece like this gets overlooked. next spring i want to do the front fluid, clutch, clutch slave (preemptive!), and the brake fluid, all over due. at least i finally own my SD free and clear!

Thanks for the answer. My bike is an 08, but only has around 8k km (5k miles) on it. I should still do this every other year?